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Thoreau

I went to the woods becauseI wished to live deliberately,to front only the essentialfacts of life, and see ifI could not learn whatit had to teach, and not,when I came to die,discover that I had not lived.I did not wish to livewhat was not life,living is so dear;nor did I wishto practise resignation,unless it was quite necessary.I wanted to live deepand suck out all the marrow of life,to live so sturdily and Spartan- likeas to put to rout all that was not life,to cut a broad swath and shave close,to drive life into a corner,and reduce it to its lowest terms,and, if it proved to be mean,why then to get the whole andgenuine meanness of it,and publish its meannessto the world;or if it were sublime,to know it by experience,and be able to givea true account of itin my next excursion.

24 February, 2011

When You're Doing it Right

When you're doing it right, no one notices.

I used to work for an awesome company that was Very Big and Iconic, and when I first went to headquarters I remember feeling like no one really noticed when I was doing my job the right way, or the best way, or the smartest way... what got you noticed? When you messed up.

I think parenting might be a little like this. We always know the kid at the party who has bad manners, but do we praise those kids who pleased and thank-you'd their way around our house for two hours, then thank their parents for doing their job. Probably not.

Anyway, I am taking this moment to praise myself because my daughter had to do an "All about ME!" poster for school and she chose "broccoli" as her favorite food. Actually she chose "meat" first, but when I asked her to be more specific, she just switched to broccoli.

The mere fact that she did not offer up: cotton candy, ice cream, doughnuts, pixie stix, or powdered sugar made me feel that, at the very least, in this one category, we are doing just fine.